I listened to parts of the video, and I'd like to address a few points. You mention that Taran Zhu should only care that the excavation was Garrosh, and not the entirety of the horde if it was part of the start of the rebellion. The rebellion started BEFORE the excavation, which makes the distinction between who's digging and who's not even more important.

Also, while the Shrine is completely open, and they may be able to murder Horde members in their sleep, do you think it would end well for them? Taran Zhu got choked out by Shan Bu, and would have died there if we weren't there to single-handedly save him. I say single handed, because the Pandarian NPC that tags along really doesn't do anything. You can argue mechanics vs lore there, but you cannot argue that Taran would have lived through that without our help. He was begging us to kill Shan Bu as he was being manhandled.

You keep bringing how how awesome the Shado-pan are for defeating a band of Zandalari trolls. We saved, in lore and in game mechanics the Zandalari trolls from the Gurubashi and their god. We also defeated the Amani and their gods who were more powerful than the Gurubashi who were more powerful than the Zandalari. So the Shado-pan manage to kill the remnants of a broken tribe, after all of their great warriors and priests fell to internal conflict, battles with other tribes, and trying to stop the Gurubashi? And this makes them look like bad mofos? They slaughtered the desperate leftovers looking for a new home. I'm not saying that the trolls introduced themselves in a nice or pleasant way. I'm saying the Shado-pan were not dealing with what could in any way be reasonably described as a formidable military presence. I don't have time to research this, but from what I remember the Zandalari are practically the librarians of the trolls.

As far as the mantid, when you finish the Klaxxi quest, he basically tells you all the Pandas have been doing is culling their weak. I doubt that it was going to end well for the Pandas when the mantid actually attacked them.

Is Taran Zhu right to be angry at Garrosh? Sure. If he acted against Garrosh, or either faction, would he be crushed into furry paste? Absolutely.

So even though its in the game that taran zu is at fault for this happening just as much, kosak comes in and says 'nope, its all your fault'.. they can't even get there own lore in order.

Taran Zu THINKS its his fault. Anyone who trained a lifetime to not be able to be corrupted by the Sha and then have it happen to them would feel the same way. The giant wave of anger hate, and violence that went flying through Pandaria that came from the battle in the Jade forest is what made him succumb. No one in Pandaria was trained to deal with that kind of emotion out of nowhere all of a sudden, they don't train to deal with emotion. They train to suppress it. He still feels guilty as hell though for letting that happen to himself.

In fact the only people who are able to resist(us and some high end faction members like Garrosh) is due to the fact we have been swimming in these emotions or war for years and know how to deal with them straight on. As opposed to the Pandaren who are masters of surpessing them. The problem was you can't suppress that kind of anger, it had to be delt with and is the reason why many Shado-Pan became overwhelmed.

The lore is perfectly in order. Your just refusing to look at that quote from Taran Zu's perspective.

Last edited by Duncanîdaho; 2013-06-23 at 07:25 PM.

The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself, "Now what is this thing doing?"-Children of Dune

I think it was partially his fault. We unleashed the Sha, but he allowed his hatred for the alliance and horde to get the better of him. The sha don't create negative emotions, they work with what is already there.

But I would like to say that I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest the sha of fear's release was indeed our fault.

Consider first that sha corruption need not be instantaneous. We have the journals from the horde/alliance leaders in Jade Forest indicating a slow process for them. It could be the paranoid Mantid Empress was already in the early stages, and that our arrival made things worse by allowing the Sha of Fear prime itself to escape. Either way, it was Shek'zeer's paranoia that eventually drew the sha of fear to her in either case once it was out.

One thing to keep in mind is that the zone storylines don't all happen at once. It's jade forest, then valley/wilds, then kun-lai, then townlong, then dread wastes, then landfall, then isle of thunder, then escalation, then siege of org.

With that in mind, take a look at the quests in the western part of valley of the four winds. It seems like the mantid there are mostly scouts and preliminary forces rather than the full might of the mantid swarm. It could be that they were an initial force sent in the earlier stages of the empress' corruption. The Dread Wastes also isn't neccisarily heavily corrupted geographically just yet, timeline wise there's still kunlai and townlong to go through before we see the zone itself, meaning the corruption could have been getting worse and worse while we were elsewhere and just not seeing it. Unless there's lore to suggest that the dread wastes really were corrupted before or during jade forest, if there is please point me in that direction.

I'll say this in defense of Taran Zhu: if the Shado Pan did a sneak attack on the Shrone of Two Moons I don't think the few sunwalker guards and refugees could stop them. And if they closed the vale back up, I don't think the Horde could afford the resources to siege it, not with the Alliance on Pandaria too eager to tear into them. Even if the Alliance and Shado-Pan don't work together, the horde still would have two enemies to face.

As for the Shado Pan falling to sha corruption, yes a good deal of them did but not the entire order. It was a failing on Taran Zhu's part, but afterwards he is greatly humbled by the experience. Go do the jade forest/into the vale quests, and then do the first quests in townlong again. He is a lot nicer to you and humbler after the experience.

The Shado-Pan are bad ass but sadly suffer from what I call the enforced incompetence syndrome that plagues all factions when the players are involved. Are the Kor'kron and Seventh Legion the best of the best for their respective factions? Not when the player is there, they're just ordinary trash mobs. Are the argent crusade an order of brave paladins who fearlessly risk their lives to destory evil? Not when the player's around, they're content to stand back and point us in the direction of the undead. The Shado-Pan suffer from this no more than most other factions. One thing the shado pan do have going for them is presence. We see them fighting in several places against yaungol and mantid, have them fight with us during shado pan dailies, etc. If you want to make the arguement that the shado pan can't do anything without our help, well neither can Varian, Vol'jin, Tirion Fordring, Thrall, Anduin, Mograine, Jaina, or Gryan Stoutmantle. So if you look at things from that perspective EVERYONE in Azeroth is incompetent whenever we're around except in a select few cases where the npc is legitimately doing something important while we fight.

Is Taran Zhu right to be angry at Garrosh? Sure. If he acted against Garrosh, or either faction, would he be crushed into furry paste? Absolutely.

According to KrazyK (who tends to be reliable on lore info even when I disagree with him on the fine details/moral ramifications/etc.), in a review copy of Vol'jin's book Taran Zhu kills dozens of mogu single-handed while Vol'jin struggles with one. And you're also making the assumption in your post that the Shado-Pan would have a straight-up fair fight with anyone. That's only maybe a third of their program--the Blackguards are there fighting fair, but you also have their Omnia spellcasters healing the Blackguards and lobbing fireballs at the enemy--then you have the assassins and saboteurs killing people in their sleep, poisoning the water supply, and doing all kinds of dirty fighting even a Forsaken would have to whistle at. If you've done the Alliance Isle of Thunder leadin, you even personally help Taoshi murder swaths of Zandalari in their sleep, evade sentry totems, and off sentries and patrols, and she barely considers it enough work to take a fiver after. There is an entire branch of Shado-Pan like that, and those are the ones Garrosh would need to look out for, 'cause while he's focused on Yi and Chao the Voice, or going after Snow Blossom and her water elemental, he'll never see Taoshi coming until her dagger's carving a line across his throat.

It does... Especialy since he was threatening the one that sent the assassin. If he does that and doesnt expect same response, it makes him an idiot.

I repeat myself, never expect fairness and predictability from your oponent.

A threat made a lot of time before the arrival in Pandaria, during a heat conversation, in which Garrosh acted like a complete moron. If Garrosh really needed that shallow excuse for justify the murder, is a pathetic and sad coward, since Vol'jin never acted behind his back, nor Garrosh ever found hints for justify his "fears". If, like a think, was just afraid that Vol'jin could further opposing him in Pandaria, is just a vile traitor.

Choose which you like more of the two. And don't act like Vol'jin had to "expect" that, since Garrosh always acted as the usual hot-headed and free-bashing asshole, not like someone fearful and frightened like a child to care for such a "threat" even without evidence that something has been done behind his back. I don't think that anyone imagined that Garrosh had his "master plan" of world-domination and orc supremacy, ready to do ANYthing for that, even murdering a Horde leader in such a way.